The 13 best science fiction books you can read on your new Kindle

The holidays are here and it looks like you have a new Kindle (or a device with a Kindle app). You now have a fun task ahead of you: create a portable library of all the books you have on your reading list – or create a new list for the coming year.

If you're looking for referrals, here are 14 science-fiction books that are on their own (or part of a larger world) that you can start with. (If you're interested in a series, you can also review some of the last year's recommendations.)

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Image: Tor Books

Sue Burke's debut novel was one of my favorite readings this year. When an expedition reaches a distant star named HIP30815f, the settlement begins. The planet Pax is habitable, but the first pods collapse, allowing the colonists to weather and sentient plants. As generations of colonists take hold and first contact with the planet's more intelligent plant types, they learn how to live with their neighbors as they rebuild human civilization.

Image: Harper Collins Publishers

One of my last favorite novels is Becky Chambers & # 39; A long road to a small, angry planet . Technically, a trilogy of novels begins, but each book stands alone. A young woman named Rosemary Harper joins the crew of a spaceship called Wayfarer. Her mission is to set up a hyperspace shipping lane, and Chambers is developing a pleasingly optimistic future as she tracks the stories of individual ship members.

Image: Penguin Random House

In the distant future, humanity has overpopulated the earth, and expeditions have worked hard to mold a series of new planets to make them habitable. A crew encounters an alien named Quill, a fungus that mutates and spreads in human space, killing the infected. Researcher Gail Smith goes to a station to find a potential survivor, Aaron Pardell, who might be the key to finding out how to protect humanity.

Image: Saga Press

This is not the happiest book, but Kameron Hurley's self-contained space opera is a bold, captivating read that produced our best 2017 novels. The book contains The Legion, a group of dying, organic world ships that fly through the depths of space. One woman, Zan, discovers she is involved in the struggle between two warring factions, the Bhavajas and the Katazyrnas, who are fighting for control of Mokshi, a worldship that may be the key to fleeing the fleet. It's a dark, weird novel that leads to fantastic reading.

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

Image: Prime Books

In the distant future, aliens known as the "otheriders" will experience advanced technologies leading to an economic downturn in human civilization. That's why spaceship mechanic Alana Quick is in trouble – she's unemployed and can not afford the medicines she needs to sustain a serious illness. When a new ship, the Tangled Axon, arrives at the port looking for her sister Nova, she falls silent and hopes her abilities will prevent the crew from dropping her. Alana notes that the ship is stranger than she imagined, and that someone is after her sister and wants to do anything to get her hands on her.

Image: Hachette Book Group

Maria Arena, a member of the crew of the colonial ship Dormire wakes up to a dreadful scene: Most of the crew – including herself – was murdered. She is actually a clone – one of several who will bring the ship to its destination. But she and her newly awakened crew members have lost their memories, the AI ​​of the ship is offline and they seem to be drifting into space. To get things back on track, they need to find out which of them is responsible for the sabotage.

Image: Tor Books

In the not-too-distant future, a pharmaceutical pirate named Jack travels around the world in a submarine, breaking patents and copyrights to bring cheap drugs to the world's impoverished peoples. When her latest drug, the superproductive dance Zacuity, gets people to kill themselves, two agents from the International Property Coalition – a human named Eliasz and a military bot called Paladin – begin to find her. Jack realizes her mistake and begins to investigate the true nature of the drug as Paladin and Eliasz work their way through the criminal underworld while navigating a complicated relationship of their own.

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Image: Simon & Schuster

In their typical sci-fi novel for the first contact, extraterrestrials visit the earth by hovering over or destroying our cities – in the Usually New York, London or LA. In Nnedi Okorafor's book aliens land in the waters off Lagos, Nigeria, where they begin to change native wildlife. They also arrest three people – Adaora, Agu, and Anthony – who each come from different areas of life and change their lives and that of the city's residents. It's a beautiful and gripping story.

Image: Penguin Random House

In the distant future, a rookie police officer named Eric Matheson will be sent to Gattis, a corporate-controlled world. He and his cybernetic partner J. P. Dillal plunge into a case in which 16 extraterrestrial thieves – one of the alien alien species – are brutally murdered. The suspects appear to be Ohba, members of the other native species on the planet, and the two begin to realize that they are trapped in the midst of a planetary conspiracy that could have far-reaching consequences.

Science fiction writers have long held to avoid an annoying limitation – the speed of light, which makes traveling between stars in space impractical: A longstanding trope is the "generation ship "A starship traveling among the inhabited stars of the descendants of the original crew: Kim Stanley Robinson Aurora is the latest version of the subject: The crew of a ship that travels to Tau Ceti realizes that life is for Out of Earth people are incredibly difficult and leaving was perhaps not the best idea.

Image: Hachette Book Group

When I call for recommendations Recently, some people had the last novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time. . After the last remnants of humanity have fled from a dying earth, they discover a long-lost home: a planet that has been terraformed for them. When they arrive, there is one complication: a spider has conquered the world, resulting in a clash of cultures. We'll see more of this soon – a sequel, Children of Ruin will be released next year, and a movie adaptation is in progress at Lionsgate.

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

Image: Saga Press

I absolutely loved Catherynne M. Valentes's most recent novel when I had him at the beginning of the year. A mix of glamorous rock with the comic style of Douglas Adams, essentially Eurovision in space. After a galaxy-gathering collective has contacted Earth, glam rocker Danesh Jalo is invited by Decibel Jones and Absolute Zeros to audition on behalf of humanity to determine if humans are sentient. When you come in last? Humanity will be extinguished so that the earth can continue on the road. It's a hilarious novel.

Image: Penguin Random House

Timothy Zahn is best known for his Star Wars novels – he will release a new one next summer, but he has also released a number of original novels. One of my favorites is The Icarus Hunt an adventure following the washed-up spacer Jordan McKell and his partner Ixil when they are contracted to fly a spaceship and its top secret cargo through the galaxy without arrogance Patthaaunutth – which controls the shipping lanes of the galaxy – finds out. It's a fun adventure with many twists and turns to the end.

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